Autour de la Table d'Hôte: Blabbermouth was bustling.....

Hi you all

Just coming up to take some air as these last weeks shot past like an arrow and I cannot even begin to tell you about all the cooking that went on.

First we had Magic Marita, a South African writer living in Provence with her French Husband Alain and their four kids and a cat. Marita was presenting a 13 part series on South Africans in France and what they cook - called 'Marita Kook' and it will be broadcasted in South Africa in January.
You can follow Marita through her website
http://www.maritavandervyver.info/
her blog, http://www.maritareadingspace.blogspot.com/ or her Facebook Group http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=78346169084

Marita and Alain's Cookbook, Summerfood in Provence has just appeared on the shelves in South Africa! A MUST!!

You can follow what's happening about the kykNet series 'Marita Kook' (in Afrikaans) on their blog:
http://onskookfrans.blogspot.com/2010/10/welkom-en-lekker-saamkook-jaco.html

Was very nervy as I do not like being in front of the lens - am always the one snapping away - and here not just a 'photo' lens but a camera rolling along in my kitchen! I do not think any of you had any idea what my kitchen looked like at the end of the season! Books piled up, papers, invoices, notes, makeup, shoes,............ So my job was to get my kitchen in tip top shape for Magic Marita and the A team from kykNet. It did help that I sent a few lines to their blog every now and then and called myself 'Babbelbek' or 'Blabbermouth'

And when DDAY arrived it was lots and lots of fun! Marita is so natural and amazing and it felt like we've been doing this for years and it just went off like a dream! Antoinette, one of the co-producers of the program, did a couple of shots and I shall include them here (Thank you Antoinette!! all the pics in this post is by her!)

I did an adapted menu with local products and a slight South African influence:
Little mustard cakes from Charroux, a beautiful medieval village not far from us, for the apéritif.
Then fish bobotie in a springroll with home made chutney
Followed by sweet and sour Quails - poached in a wine-cranberry sauce and then roasted in the oven just before serving

We also had Tracy from the Food Studio in Cape Town (http://www.foodstudio.co.za/) and her cookgroup that came for lunch on Dday and it was wonderful sharing this experience with them! Thanks to all it went off so well and on time and here's to Magic Marita, Antoinette and Marike, the producers, Jacques and David the cameramen, my darling husband Olivier always drawn into the running whirlwind life of his wife!